BY JOE MALINCONICO
Star-Ledger
PORT ELIZABETH, N.J. — The shortest route from Guadalajara to El Paso usually doesn’t go through New Jersey by way of the Panama Canal.
So Customs and Border Protection officials at Port Elizabeth became somewhat suspicious about a shipment of pottery making that circuitous journey. They targeted the clay vases for a special inspection in Elizabeth, where the cargo container was being transferred from ship to truck.
And when they put the container through a imaging machine, they noticed there appeared to be something inside the vases. It turned out to be 1,097 bricks of marijuana, weighing more than a ton, with a street value of more than $5 million, Custom officials announced yesterday.
“This seizure exemplifies the effective use of CBP targeting systems, nonintrusive inspection equipment, and the skill of our officers assigned to targeting and enforcement teams,” said Adele Fasano, Customs’ director for the New York/New Jersey area.
The drugs were seized on Nov. 6, but authorities did not release information about the case until yesterday because they did not want to jeopardize their investigation into the drug trafficking, said Customs spokeswoman Kompel Sachdeva.
So far, one person has been named in the case, Guillermo Serrer Perez, a Mexican national, who was arrested in North Carolina on Nov. 20, according to Customs officials. Authorities did not say exactly what charges were filed against Perez.
“This remains an ongoing investigation,” said Sachdeva.
Customs officials began scrutinizing the shipment of vases even before it left Mexico. That’s standard practice under the agency’s Advanced Targeting System, which analyzes shipping’s records on all imports to try to find anything from terrorist weapons to counterfeit designer clothing.
After being unloaded in Elizabeth, the cargo was supposed to go by truck to Baltimore and then by truck to El Paso, officials said.
But the brightly colored vases never got that far. After they went through the image inspection machine at Port Elizabeth, Customs officers called in their K-9, which quickly sniffed out the 2,547 pounds of pot.
Copyright 2007 Star-Ledger